Category: Thoughts

I grew up loving soccer. I remember having a Boca Juniors and Maradona poster in my room as a kid. My family would gather around during big tournaments and shout at the TV.

I had a collection of trophy’s at home from playing all throughout elementary school. I didn’t play in high school because after changing schools, I was nervous about joining a team in a new school.

Once I moved out and started traveling around the world, I forgot about soccer. It became tricky to follow as timezones were hard to follow and I kept moving around. My busy work/travel schedule didn’t allow much for other hobbies outside of travel. It’s also hard to relate and feel connected to a team without the connection of it being part of your home. Seattle is my home and the Sounders are a part of that. While I still follow many European and South American regional teams, I don’t have the same connection as I do with my local team.

My travels have slowed down and finally settled in Seattle for awhile. I didn’t follow MLS much before I moved but I got lucky and happen to be in one of the greatest soccer cities in the US. There are very few cities in the US with a huge soccer passion as much as we have here in Seattle for the Sounders.

The finals of the Women’s World Cup were in Vancouver so we got to see the US in the finals. We also got to see the US Mens win a match in the Copa America tournament in Seattle along with Argentina as well.

I’ve marched with the Sounders supporters group, contributed to the ECS supporters group, helped paint tifos, and chanted many times during games. This will be my second year in a row purchasing season tickets and I couldn’t be happier about supporting the Sounders.

Open vacation policy (no set number of days per year). We encourage all employees to take the time they need for vacation, to pursue their own interests, to stay healthy, and to spend time with friends and family.

Since working at WooThemes and now Automattic, I’ve never worked for a company that cared more about the personal well-being of their employee’s than at WooThemes and Automattic.

Typically on Labor Day, employee’s in the US have off. For us at Automattic, it’s completely optional. I prefer this. I can take off on days that are important to me rather than a holiday that I’d sit around playing video games all day anyway. It’s important to me that days off are days that are productive in some way and not taking off for the sake of just having the day off.

I choose to rarely take off on US holidays and instead save those days for days that are important to me and my family. This allows for greater flexibility and planning around travel and family visits. I can avoid the high costs of travel around the holiday and instead take time off when it’s convenient for me.

Due to the flexibility of vacation time and remote work, sometimes I work even while I’m on vacation and on weekends but there’s no pressure nor is it expected to work on those days. I just do it because I want to.